


DTR Talk?

by wheres-mickey (peijou)



Series: The Shameful Tales of Broken English [2]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Fluff and Smut, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-23
Updated: 2015-03-15
Packaged: 2018-03-14 19:32:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3422966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peijou/pseuds/wheres-mickey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ian is sick and babbles to the point where he doesn't even know what he's saying anymore, but Mickey listens.<br/>And when he wakes up, maybe Ian realizes he didn't mean half the things he said.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Ian was a bit in a daze. He had been for hours, but the meds were not helping.

So of course he had trouble focusing on anything but the pain in his head, and the dozen of used tissues he tried to keep away from his face as he stubbornly glanced over his shoulder to watch the door, hoping someone would get him out of his misery.

But then, the car and shout noises filtering through the window became so loud he decided to make an effort not to drift off. Especially since he thought he heard his boyfriend's voice in the chaos.

 _Boyfriend_.

Despite the pain, a lazy smile lifted the corner of his mouth.

There was a last shout, doors banged, a car's engine started, and the sounds slowly moved off until it became quiet again. Quiet to the point where Ian vaguely thought that, maybe, with all the tiredness and medication, he had been hallucinating the whole thing completely.

"Hey. Gallagher here?"

The voice came from downstairs. Ian shifted in his bed, a warm sensation spreading through his body as soon as he recognized Mickey's voice. He grew a little anxious, too, because said voice sounded unhappy.

But that was understandable, he considered right away, when he heard that Lip had answered the door. Far from helping an already edgy Mickey, he was offering all but his typical bullshit answers. "Uh, yeah. I'm right here."

"I'm not talking about you, douchebag."

"Carl then?"

Ian chuckled, which he regretted as soon as it turned into a rough cough. Even from another dimension, he could have heard Mickey's eyes rolling upwards in sheer boredom. Mickey's lack of patience was gold.

"Alright smartass,  _move_."

With that, the front door slammed and Mickey seemingly made his way through the mess of the Gallagher house to the stairs and up to Ian's room, effectively ignoring Lip whose weak protests were vainly trying to prevent him from doing all the things he would have done anyway.

Ian's door was opened with so much force it echoed in Ian's brain.

"The fuck, Gallagher?"

Slowly, Ian turned in his bed towards Mickey.

He looked angry. He was leaning against the door frame and looking down on him, his features threatening under his thousands of layers.

"Hey, Mick," he managed to articulate.

He felt himself frown at the sight of the light that had shed into the room when Mickey had opened the door.

The reason for the grimace might or might not also be because he was disapproving of Mickey's use of 'Gallagher', after he'd finally dropped it to settle for  _Ian_ , which Ian loved so much because he had the impression that Mickey was calling him by some special nickname as it never sounded like his name came out as beautifully in anyone else's mouth as it did in Mickey's.

"The fuck, Gallagher?" Mickey repeated, crashing a pensive Ian back to planet Earth.

"It's Ian now," Ian corrected eventually.

Mickey raised an eyebrow. He bumped his shoulder against the wall to get back on his feet, and closed the door behind him to wash the pained look off of Ian's face. "Fuck Ian, you look like shit." He peeled off his coat, tossed it on Carl's mattress, before heading for Ian's bed.

"You look good. You always look good."

Mickey snorted. "You usually look good but  _here_ , man, no you don't." He settled next to Ian's bed and landed his hand on his forehead. Ian closed his eyes and pushed into the pressure. "Yeah, okay, you're fucking boiling," Mickey admitted with concern after a while.

"Why are you here? I mean, I thought you had plans?" Ian whispered, confused. His tongue felt furred. "A run with your brothers or something."

"Well yeah, I was supposed to," Mickey gave him a look. "But that was without a stupid redheaded ass that won't answer any of my texts nor return any of my calls."

"Shit," Ian muttered. He hadn't stepped out of his bed since he felt like his head was going to explode. Consequently, he hadn't checked his phone, which was probably still faithfully sitting on the kitchen counter, full of angry and worried missed calls from Mickey. "I'm sorry."

Mickey still looked upset. Nevertheless, it was as if seeing Ian in his pitiful condition had sucked all his willingness to be mad. His voice was a bit softer when he spoke, "Man, it's been like two days now, and I haven't seen you since then. I mean you practically  _live_ in my house now. The least you could do was to tell me."

As Ian was about to apologize some more, because he knew he was being the asshole here, he was suddenly shaken by a furious coughing fit. Mickey stood up, left to come back just a second later with a glass filled with water in his hand.

He maneuvered Ian to back him up against a pillow to calm the cough down and handed him the glass.

"Sorry, man," he mumbled with a helpless shrug. "It's probably because of Yev. When you babysitted him with me."

He watched carefully as Ian painfully drank his glass of water once the fit settled. "Lana's also in bed because of him. Babies are so dangerous. I'm glad I avoid diseases."

Ian chuckled at that, softly enough not to cough again. "No you don't."

Mickey frowned. "Yes, I do."

"Okay," Ian said and tilted tiredly his head to the side, "do I have to remind you that one time you got sick from hanging outside of the house in the freezing Chicagoan winter wearing nothing but a tank-top and some shorts and we thought you were going to die? Or that other time you ate so much pop tart I had to rub your back while you where puking in the toilets? Or maybe the time when you slipped and–"

"Yeah okay, _okay_." Mickey cut off eagerly, his hands raised in surrender. "Okay, _fine_. I get it."

He shoved Ian's shoulder lightly with a grin. "Meanwhile _I'm_ perfectly fine right now, whereas _you_ look like shit."

Ian idly marveled at the fact that this smile still had such a powerful impact on him, even after all those months of them being together, and, more recently, of them officially dating each other. But then, he thought the headache was probably making it more difficult for him to resist the urge of acknowledging his fondness for Mickey as a whole, not just his smile.

Grateful for this lame excuse he had just found for himself, he let himself be overwhelmed by his just as lame feelings for Mickey.

"I'm sorry, I'm so boring right now. I can't even snap back."

Mickey laughed, satisfied by his easy victory. _Such a nerd._

Ian suddenly realized that he really, really wanted Mickey to stay, but had no idea what to do, because there was no way he could tell him that without turning it into a thing, and he was just way too tired to keep up a normal conversation.

So there he was, painfully anticipating the moment Mickey would stand up and leave him to meet up with his brothers.

But the moment was stretching out. Minutes, hours passed, and Mickey was still standing by his side, at the edge of the bed, easily chatting about his cousins and what had happened in the Milkovich house since Ian had left; which was to say, not much in two days of a Milkovich life, but probably more than in a boring suburban couple's lifetime. Ian simply  _hmm_ ed and nodded, but Mickey seemed content with just that.

Just as Mickey was slyly telling him that Joey had decided to name the cat that was often coming to their porch  _Gizmo_ and how much he thought that was a stupid name, because, come on, he was not a fifty year-old lady, plus the damn cat could be a female, Ian felt a pain squeeze his chest as he blurted out: "Have we ever had a DTR conversation?"

There was a beat. Mickey was so shocked he didn't even realized he had opened a wide mouth. He wrinkled his nose and didn't seem to be sure what he should be saying, so after a few aborted tries to produce a sound, he carefully settled for a: "Come on, Ian, you really think this is the right moment for that?"

"Considering I am too sick for my self-control to be efficient, too weak for you to beat me up, and only a pill away from being high because of the heavy meds Vee gave me, I'd say that yeah. There has never been a better moment."

No one ever likes those kinds of conversation, not even Ian.

He side-eyed his boyfriend. Mickey had started sweating in anticipation and was rubbing his sweaty hands against his lap, head ducked. He settled in an awkward silence which, since it wasn't an obvious refusal, Ian took as his cue to keep babbling. "It's just– I mean, I like it when we have sex but–" he had to stop as his headache suddenly made him feel like someone just had the great idea to hammer in his brain. Started, Mickey moved to prevent him from talking but Ian swallowed and stubbornly carried on. "But I wish we could be more, like– I don't know? Intimate?" The words felt like falling out of his mouth without his consent.

Mickey shivered. "I know it's sounds stupid," Ian added lamely. He covered his burning forehead with his hand to hide his deep embarrassment. "Sorry."

The air felt so thick Ian didn't even want to open his eyes. He knew he couldn't look at Mickey anyway.

He left his mind drift, vaguely reflecting on how much of an asshole he was being to Mickey as he kept pushing his boundaries further.

As he was just falling back to a restless sleep, he heard Mickey say: "I don't know how to deal with this shit, man". It was so soft Ian wasn't sure he actually said it. Maybe it was just a figment of his imagination.

In this daydream, though, he sounded somewhat pissed, but mostly worried. Maybe worried that he was pissing Ian off; most likely, Ian thought, pissed off that Ian cared so much about such stupid girly things.

The small creak of the bed indicated him Mickey had stoop up. He exited the room and Ian did not expect him to come back.

Even more pained, if that was possible, he slowly drifted off to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (it does gets better!)


	2. Chapter 2

When Ian woke up, he had no recollection whatsoever of what had happened during the last few days. He certainly remembered the headaches, the aches everyfuckingwhere in his body, the meds Vee gave him; the pain, he remembered. The rest? Hell, he didn't even know how long he had been out until the screen of his phone told him it was four days.

There was one good thing, though: the fever was much better. It was like he had almost recovered; like he was never sick in the first place.

Noticing a note on his nightstand, next to a bowl and a glass, he sat awkwardly on his bed and read it out loud, '' _sorry I had to go, let me know when you're up_ ''. It was Mickey's handwriting. Ian ran a tired hand across his face, trying to remember why his boyfriend would have left a damn note in his house.

He spotted a coat, the grey coat Mickey was always carrying around, even when it wasn't so cold outside, and even though it was massive, discarded in the corner.

His memory was patchy, but he definitely remembered Mickey coming to his house, for some reason. He frowned.

A noise in the bathroom indicated him someone was there. Without letting go of his frown and still focused on the note, he called out to them from his spot in the bedroom.

Debbie appeared through the crack of the door. A smile lit up her face as she looked at her older brother.

"Ian! How are you feeling?"

"I'm alright, I guess," he answered and looked up to meet Debbie's eye. He waved the paper in askance, "Was Mickey here?"

"Everyday, yeah. He left - three hours ago, I think? There's some leftover of the soup he made you, if you want. It's downstairs."

"Your man is a fucking feeder," Lip added, his voice loud from the kitchen. ''He kept bringing you stuff to eat all night long. Didn't get a fucking minute to sleep.''

Ian hmmed a response, and Debbie got closer to put her hand on his forehead while he sent Mickey a quick message, " _hey i'm up, you could've texted me instead of leaving a note, this isn't 17th century england, you nerd. my siblings tell me you were here?"_.

When his sister seemed satisfied with her inspection, she let go of him and gave him a hug before saying something about getting ready for school and leaving him in the room.

His phone received an answer within seconds: " _u're the fucking nerd. u coming over?"._  He sent an affirmative response.

The shower he took first was heavenly warm. Back to his bedroom, he slipped on whatever came first; a shirt and some ripped jeans. He was downstairs within seconds.

"Hey," he greeted Lip and Carl, the latter too busy cutting a pattern in the tablecloth to even hear. "Hello to you too," he said with a grin to Liam while rubbing his small foot in his hand, making the little boy giggle happily. He kissed the top of his little brother's head.

"You off to see Mickey?" Lip asked before he could head for the door.

"Yeah," Ian simply answered, but was intrigued by Lip's sly smile. ''Why?''

"Nah, just askin'. You guys seemed pretty intense the other night."

Ian turned slowly to stare at Lip, puzzled. "Why? What happened?"

Lip's mouth stretched in an unholy smile as he raised his eyebrows, eyes pointedly focused on the sandwich he was making.

"Are you fucking eavesdropping?" Ian finally asked him, unsure of how he should be reacting. Lip's dismissive hand movement was the only answer he got.

"Don't mind me" his brother replied somewhat enigmatically, before he changed the subject completely. "Huh, I have to take those two to school. Can you bring something to eat for tonight, please? I'm not sure Fiona's gonna make it for dinner."

"Yeah, sure," and with that, Ian took a slice of bread and pushed the back door with his butt.

"Alright guys, we– Carl! Jesus! Put that knife down!"

The noise of bickering faded away behind Ian as he went down the back stairs and started walking mechanically.

He was confused about Lip's innuendo. He was pretty sure Mickey and him hadn't had sex while he was sick. There was no reason he could think otherwise though, because he couldn't remember anything, not really, and they usually had sex when they saw each other.

But Mickey hated it when they did it in his childhood bedroom, because the Gallagher house was always filled to the brim with kids, especially now with the Gallagher Daycare's peak, and it was making him uncomfortable.

Besides, he was pretty sure that he wouldn't have had the strength to do him in his state anyway, because it always ended up being a pretty exhausting exercise and he remembered being as vigorous as a slug. A tired slug.

He had reached the Milkovich house before he could really sort his thoughts out, and saw Mickey leaning against the fence, taking a drag of his cigarette.

When he noticed Ian, he dropped the cigarette on the floor before glancing sideways and jogging towards him.

His hair looked nice as shit, Ian noted absently.

"Hey, you okay?" Mickey asked as soon as he knew his voice could be heard.

He approached him, awkwardly bouncing on his feet, and finally patted his shoulder in a way he probably hoped was appropriate. It ended up being a bit too weird to Ian's linking. Instead, what he really wanted to do was to put his fingers in his hair; but he refrained the urge as he reminded himself there was more important stuff to deal with first. "Hey, Mick, thanks for passing by."

"S'nothing," Mickey replied with a smile, which Ian privately thought alarmingly cute.

"What happened while I was out?"

"What?"

"My brother won't stop giving me shit about it, but I can't remember. The pills maybe?" They really needed to read the side effects. "He said you were there. Did I do something I should be sorry for?"

Mickey shook his head nervously. "Nah man, it's fine. You want coffee?"

Ian shrugged. He followed him in the house and sat on the couch.

He watched carefully as Mickey reached for the coffeepot with one hand and opened the cupboard with the other to get two mugs. His motions were smooth, as if Mickey knew he was being observed and was nervous about it.

He filled one of the mug and handed it to Ian, who brushed his fingers against his hands when he took it. Mickey frowned, trying to hide his embarrassment, and went to fill his own. Finally, he settled next to Ian, who wouldn't stop staring at him.

"Okay now, what happened?"

" _Jesus_ , Ian, drop it," Mickey huffed, giving him an annoyed look.

But Ian didn't want to drop it. The fact that everybody was hiding whatever he had done frustrated him. And this frustration was turning into anger as he saw Mickey behaving just the same as his brother.

Like, come  _on_ , he couldn't have done something so bad that they had to keep it a secret from him.

He got even angrier when he realized he wanted to kiss Mickey very badly, but his boyfriend's awkwardness and distance since he arrived had made an exponential tension grow between the two of them, keeping them still like stupid puppets. Why would he sit so fucking far away? He was like like ten feet away! Why not sitting next to Ian so they could make out and voilà? He wanted to pull that nice hair of his – or let him pull his, his choice really. "Anyone home?" he asked softly.

"No. My brothers are still on this run and I thought–"

"Okay," Ian interrupted and went straight for Mickey's mouth, pressing his lips against his.

Mickey automatically leaned in and kissed back, closing his eyes as the kiss deepened, his hands already on Ian's waist.

But he pulled out breathlessly, shoving Ian.

"Hey, we don't have to do that all the time," he said between his quick breathing. "We can do other shit, like– I don't know, like, how was your day?"

Ian was nonplussed.

He wanted to say that _yes_ , they had to do it all the time. Hell,  _he_  wanted to do it all the time, he wanted to feel Mickey 24/7 and the moments when they were away were the ones he hated the most.

Mickey didn't seem mad, he seemed uncomfortable, eyes pointedly focused elsewhere than on Ian's face.

Ian didn't want to force him to do something he didn't want, but then, they had been kissing for months now and it had never been a problem.

He glanced at Mickey's hard on in his pants, which he was having trouble to hide, and looked up to meet his eye, eyes narrowed and eyebrows furrowed in a  _I don't understand_ expression _._ "You seem like to want it, though."

"Yeah sure I do, I mean look at you," Mickey babbled, highly uncomfortable and shifting restlessly on the couch, a blush rushing its way up his neck and cheeks, "but you don't  _have_  to do it is all I'm saying. We can do other things, if that's what you want."

And,  _there_ it was. The memory from the second day he was sick, when Mickey came in his childhood bedroom.

Ian sensed he was violently blushing too, as the memory suddenly hit him like a kick at the back of his head.  _More intimacy_  bullshit, yeah; now he knew why Mickey was acting so weird.

And that's not all he remembered. He could also remember how, during his illness, Mickey carried food to his bed, forced him to eat, refusing to let him stubbornly starve himself to death, talked with him and even slept next to him, tightly squeezed in his tiny bed. He buried his head in the small space between Mickey's neck and shoulder.

Why the fuck did he say such a thing? I didn't even mean it. Mickey was practically the only one who still cared about him. Who ever cared about him. Sure, his siblings looked up for him; but Mickey was the one who had dragged him out of the shitty clubs where he was almost selling his body to old queens, he was the one who had given up on his father and placed the riskiest bet on his whole family to be out and to be with him, and he was the one who had apparently stayed up all night by his side making him soup and taking care of him while he was a coughing mess.

And he could picture himself, clearly, whining to this very Mickey, that the two of them were not intimate enough. And the more he played this bit in his head, the more stupid he felt. Fucking pills.

"What I want, tough, is to suck your dick," he finally managed to mumble against Mickey's skin, calmly, despite the crudeness of the words.

Mickey was about to reply but Ian leaned in and caught his lips again in what he knew was a sloppy and desperate move, but was helpless about it.

He trailed down Mickey's jaw without stopping to brush his lips against his soft skin, making his hands work on the belt at the same time to get rid of it. He reluctantly pulled away, only to yank Mickey's pants down to his thighs and to get rid of his as well, which were becoming not only unnecessary but also highly cumbersome.

He sat completely in Mickey's lap, initiating a motion so their hips, along with their awakening erections, were rubbing against each other's, through the thin material of their boxers.

He looped his arm around Mickey's neck and pushed his head against the couch, so that he had full access to kiss and nip at all the parts he could reach. He inevitably came back to his lips though, because, oh god, Mickey's tongue in his mouth was just exactly what he needed. And Mickey was nothing but obedient.

They made out for a while, until their lips were cherry-red and swollen by each other's kisses, and Ian could hear Mickey's quiet moans in his mouth. He liked the sounds he was dragging out of Mickey so much he almost got distracted from his initial target.

Even though the older boy chased after him, Ian licked Mickey's mouth one last time and took his boxers off. Without breaking eye contact, he got to his knees at the foot of the couch and aligned his mouth with the top of Mickey's cock. In one quick motion, he swallowed him as much as he could. Immediately, Mickey arched against the couch and reached for Ian's hair, rashly grabbing the hand he had put on his waist with the other and intertwining their fingers as he did so.

He moaned helplessly as Ian picked up the pace, begging him to keep going.

Ian loved the feeling of Mickey giving himself to him, and just looking at him struggle and bit his lips was enough for Ian to be completely hard. If Mickey's body language was honest -and it always was- he wasn't far from coming either.

"Ian! Ian, wait," Mickey panted. Ian looked up, a bit alarmed, searching for Mickey's face.

He had shifted on the couch, and hauled him back so he could rest his forehead against Ian's.

He grabbed Ian's boxers to yank them off and made the redhead giggle when he squeezed his butt cheeks en route. When Mickey got a firm hold of both of them and started to jerk them off together though, he quivered and got as close as possible to his boyfriend without breaking the rhythm.

Shivers were working up and down his spine as he curled up against Mickey's chest, digging half moons in his hips.

Their moans became so loud and uncontrollable that Ian was been panting Mickey's name over and over before he could even could realize it.

The hand Ian ran through his hair and the nip at his shoulder sent Mickey over the edge, and he came all over Ian's chest.

Just looking at his flushed, beautiful face, his slightly open mouth, was enough for Ian, who followed him a second later. They fell numb across the couch.

He sank his head in Mickey's neck again, trying to get his breath back.

"I'm so sorry for being such a needy bitch," he finally panted.

Mickey's body was shaken by a small laugh underneath him. "Well, if that means awesome sex, I'm fine with more of you being a needy bitch.  _Ouch_!" Ian pinched his nipple. Mickey looked scandalized. "Jesus fuck Ian, why'd you do that?"

"I'm sorry, Mick," Ian just said once again. "Didn't mean it."

If Ian loved the sex, he also loved the  _after_  sex, because that was when Mickey dropped all of his skittishness.

Once upon a time, they would have flied apart like a couple of scared birds as soon as the business was finished. But it felt like ages ago – even though it was a matter of months, really – when he could now sense Mickey's chin resting on the top of his head and him kissing his crown, then his temple. He wondered just  _how_ he could have even asked for more intimacy, when things were just fine as they were now. Especially fine compared to how they used to be.

"You're heavy as fuck, Firecrotch."

"It's the weight of my existence," Ian responded, "bear it." It made Mickey grin but he didn't move away. "I will."

Ian knew he needed to head for the store to buy the food Lip asked him to get, but he let himself stay like that for a little while, wishing this little while could last forever; kissing Mickey's neck and collarbone softly like a dumb, enamored teenager.


End file.
